


Nothing to Fix

by Dedicate Kiwicrocus (cranky__crocus)



Series: SMACKDOWN '11 Round Two - Team Discipline [13]
Category: Emelan - Tamora Pierce
Genre: F/F, Goldenlake, smackdown
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-05-21
Updated: 2011-05-21
Packaged: 2017-10-19 16:19:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 771
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/202817
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cranky__crocus/pseuds/Dedicate%20Kiwicrocus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It always struck Rosethorn suddenly, memories of dying—no warnings or indications of impending emotions, just an unpredictable ‘pop’ like a seed pod.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Nothing to Fix

**Author's Note:**

> Written for SMACKDOWN at Goldenlake: fiefgoldenlake.proboards.com

It always struck Rosethorn suddenly, memories of dying—no warnings or indications of impending emotions, just an unpredictable ‘pop’ like a seed pod.  The cobble, dust or dirt under her bare feet would draw the memory out of her, or the flash of an indigo crocus in her view. Sometimes it was the way Briar called her name, or the way Lark’s face looked so tragically beautiful in the shimmering light of their tears—for if either was drawn to tears, the other was never long after, no matter how Rosethorn hid hers.

            Lark never asked about it in words—even the strongest of humans had that inbred aversion to the acknowledgement of mortality—but it occasionally appeared in her face. It was usually followed by a wince, which Rosethorn took to mean Lark wished she had the strength to ask, to help Rosie unload those thoughts and experiences.

            To date, Rosethorn had always had the strength not to respond to these unasked and unanswered questions. But after Gyongxe, the glimpses of afterlife memories and feelings—so strange and inimitable in life, those—came more often, even in the sanctuary of her own garden back at Discipline.

            When she saw an embroidered cloth on the table with an unmistakable lark-bird, Rosethorn snatched it up and brought it out to her garden. She sat with it there, legs crossed; she grimaced on the way down and pondered the reality of adopting a wooden staff like Daja’s, to assist her stiff bones and muscles.

            She stared at the embroidered lark and thought she almost— _almost_ —saw it move, but of course it was a trick of the sunlight and her ageing eyes. Her fingers brushed over the tight stitches and she sighed.

            “Lark, I have to tell you—I have to tell you what happened there, or it will keep seeping out of me, and I’ll always have death darkening the corners of my sight.” She pursed her lip, biting the inside of her cheek. It wasn’t the same, but it would do. “So I have to tell _someone_ , and who else would I tell but you? The children know, but it was different for them—they weren’t supposed to die. I _was_.”

            She impatiently wiped her tingling eye, where a tear was threatening; she had no tolerance for the weeps right now.

            “And Lark, I, I came to _peace_ with that—with leaving _you_. I don’t know how, I don’t know if it was that _place_ because the peace is gone now, mostly, but I will never stop feeling guilty for being ready to leave you. I went down fighting for you, and I yielded.”

            Rosethorn held the lark to her cheek, where she was creating a mental barrier against moisture. “Our vows prepare us for it—the moment of yielding, of peace. I know I did it right, the way you would have wanted... But now I am back, I am here, here with _you_ , and my heart breaks when that feeling of willingness arises.”

            She paused and frowned, half kicking herself for resorting to a ritual such as this. She could just imagine _Willowwater_ chatting away to a painted sock, and yet here she was. It was a pity she didn’t have it in her to laugh.

            Rosethorn talked to her embroidered lark for more long minutes about the peace and plants and pleasantries of the afterlife, but to her credit the tears did not come.

            Lark, silent as a trained traveller could learn to be, stood in the doorway being brave. She couldn’t ask, not directly, but she could listen—no matter the pain in her heart—for Rosie’s hurt worse. Only sharing the burden would help.

 

 

Lark didn’t speak on it—her courage only stretched so far—but that evening when she embraced Rosie after their baths she nearly crushed the poor woman’s torso, before Rosethorn joked that her hair would be ruined.

            Later, when Rosethorn was sated and affecting sleep, Lark stepped into her workroom and wept. The tears travelled to Rosie’s cheeks but this time she affixed no blame, as she was not crying for herself—she was crying for _Lark:_ for the woman who lost her partner once, met her lover’s living ghost, nurtured her fully back to life and nearly lost her again, all without the capacity to share or understand the burden of such events; for the woman whose nature was to fix and secure but who could do no such thing.

           All mages and lovers knew there was no way to fix death. A dead mage and her partner knew it best.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! (:


End file.
